Keri Krane
Created by Dick Briefer

"Don't let me scare you -- I get results."
-- Keri reassures a client who's surprised
to discover she's a woman in Charlie Chan #4

A hyperkinetic, chain-smoking female private eye, KERI KRANE was drawn by Dick Briefer and appeared as a backup feature at least a couple of times (and possibly as many as five or six times) in the Charlie Chan comic book of the late forties.

Kerri became a private eye after her sister, a police officer, was killed in the line of duty. Her response was to gather together "some of the best private detectives in the country" and found the Los Angeles-based Phoenix Detective Agency.

But Kerri wasn't some golly-gee grown-up NANCY DREW, a curvaceous bimbo or some hands-off boss sending in the boys to handle the rough stuff -- nope, Keri was a middle-aged business owner who took a hands-on approach to the job and could be every bit as hard-boiled as any of her male contemporaries.

So much so, in fact, that some of her underlings would occasionally question her femininity.

But when a killer pulled a knife on her in one of her adventures and warned her about making any "disturbance," for example, Keri's reply is, "Disturbance is the thing we want most right now."

And then she shoots him in the face.

So there.

If Joe Friday can be Ms. Tree's father, put down Kerri as her grandma.

COMIC BOOKS

• CHARLIE CHAN
  (1948-49, Prize Publications)
  Art by Dick Briefer
  Keri appeared as back-up feature in 5 issues

• "Keri Krane" (October 1948, Charlie Chan #3)
• "Keri Krane" (December 1948-January 1949, Charlie Chan #4)

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Illustration from Charlie Chan #3 swiped from www.kirbymuseum.org.